National Agriculture Market (NAM) has been conceived to create an online
platform which will integrate the APMC regulated market yards across
the States to create a National Agriculture Market. Department of
Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of
India has decided to promote NAM through Agriculture Tech Infrastructure
Fund (ATIF) by creation of a common electronic platform deployable in
selected regulated markets across the country. This initiative is
focused on reducing information asymmetry, increasing market reach for
the farmers, and reducing transaction costs. Integration of APMC’S
across the country through the e-platform is seen as an important
measure for overcoming the challenges posed by the present APMC’s system
namely – fragmentation of State into multiple market areas, each
administered by separate APMC, multiple levy of mandi fees, requirement
for multiple license for trading in different APMCs, licensing barriers
leading to conditions of monopoly, poor quality of infrastructure and
low use of technology, information asymmetry, opaque process for price
discovery, high level of market charges, movement controls, etc